


machine parts, come together

by asexualshepard



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Eodwulf POV, First Kiss, First Love, For the most part, M/M, Underage Drinking, obviously i have no idea what eodwulf and astrid are actually like, this is basically just an exploration of caleb's backstory, this is just my current headcanon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-06-07 00:12:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15206567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualshepard/pseuds/asexualshepard
Summary: “You’ll be watching the other two, won’t you?”Eodwulf wasn’t sure if the farmer—Ezem, he thought the man’s name was—had said anything of consequence between the last thing he heard and this new question. But he blinked at the man, a wobbly moment taken to get his bearings.“Yes,” Eodwulf said, clearing his throat when the word came out quiet. “Yes, I will be.”--Or, the history of Caleb Widogast.





	1. Blumenthal

**Author's Note:**

> i'm here for a fun time not a long time. i wrote this first part after CR2EP25 and before EP26, so literally everything i've written is just me projecting my desires for the blumenthal kids, tbh. if you went out on a limb with this weird little bit of experiment, thank you!!!! i appreciate you giving me a shot!!! i hope you enjoy it as much as i'm enjoying writing it!!!!
> 
> also huge thank-yous to [@sleepyschmoop](http://sleepyschmoop.tumblr.com/) (who doesn't go here but was still willing to read and encourage me to push on), [@losebetter](http://losebetter.tumblr.com/) (without whom i wouldn't listen to CR in the first place), and [@queen-schadenfreude](http://queen-schadenfreude.tumblr.com/) (who is The Best and yells back at me whenever i post about this on tumblr). y'all are the best and i love you <3
> 
> the chapter count on this isn't for certain because i have no self-control and i posted this when i was only halfway through the second chapter, so we'll see!!! but i have at least four chapters planned!!! <3 <3 thank you again!!!!!

The farmer who lived on the outskirts of town was rambling in Eodwulf’s ear. He’d carefully situated himself near the edge of the square shortly after the party began, hoping the distance would allow him to escape idle chatter with people he knew by name only, if that. Frankly, he should have known better—that, as one of the three people being celebrated, he’d be found eventually.

At least the separation had given him enough time to get an ale or two in him before he’d been forced to converse.

“If I’m bein’ honest, I was always a little worried about you three,” the farmer said, waving his hands about. “Magic’s dangerous, after all. And you’re all so young.”

Eodwulf hummed, blinking sluggishly, arms folded across his broad chest. Partially because of the alcohol in his system and partially because of lack of desire to communicate, he was only half-listening. Just enough to get the gist, to not be impolite. His eyes scanned the square, though, taking in the large crowd of people, a blur of faces and muted clothing, all there to celebrate Blumenthal’s three brightest.

It was a nice night for a party. Cloudless skies gaped to allow Exandria’s moons to shine their brightest. The larger of the two reflected pale blue light over the town, bright enough that the lanterns Eodwulf, Astrid, and Caleb had made—small things of paper and conjured balls of light—were nearly useless. The decorations were pretty, at least. Made Blumenthal feel a bit like a mirror of the night sky high above.

“You’ll be watching the other two, won’t you?”

Eodwulf wasn’t sure if the farmer—Ezem, he thought the man’s name was—had said anything of consequence between the last thing he heard and this new question. But he blinked at the man, a wobbly moment taken to get his bearings.

“Yes,” Eodwulf said, clearing his throat when the word came out quiet. “Yes, I will be.”

Ezem grinned as if either Caleb or Astrid were his.

“Doubt our Caleb needs much looking after though, does he?”

Ah. Caleb, then.

With an amused huff, Eodwulf turned his gaze to the center of the square again, where Caleb was surrounded by people and performing party tricks. They were simple spells—some of the first they’d taught themselves all those years ago, sitting on the floor of Astrid’s bedroom with a tome folded open between the three of them. He was doing his best to make them look much more complicated than they were, his somatic movements dramatic and exaggerated. As if the common folk of Blumenthal would need something extra to think a spell magnificent.

Caleb conjured a hand, blue and vaguely transparent, which lifted the hat of one man from his head. Everyone in the vicinity clapped. Caleb bowed like the little shit he was.

“I will make sure he’s alright, all the same,” Eodwulf said, hearts softening in his chest.

Ezem nodded, obviously pleased with the answer, and swiftly changed the topic. Eodwulf didn’t stop himself when his mind began to wander again. Though, in truth, it didn’t so much wander as it did stay put.

Tomorrow, he, Caleb, and Astrid were to leave for Soltryce.

The recruiters had come through a month ago, given them letters of acceptance upon assessing their skills, and continued on their way with instructions that the three of them should be in Rexxentrum by the fourteenth of the next month. They’d been preparing for weeks, drawing up routes and planning supplies, deciding essentials. With the city a day and a half away on foot, they determined it was an easy enough journey to make on their own, despite the objections of Astrid’s parents.

Eodwulf would be eighteen in three months, after all. That was plenty old enough to make the trip unsupervised.

He’d be lying to say he wasn’t worried, though.

Being the oldest of the three meant the responsibility of safety naturally fell on his shoulders. He’d gotten long speeches from both of their parents, though, naturally, Astrid’s were more overwhelming to talk to. Both conversations enforced his role, in his mind. Caleb and Astrid were resourceful—they wouldn’t be burdens by any means—but if something happened, if something crept out of the woods at night, the fault would fall on Eodwulf.

He wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle that.

A background noise to Eodwulf’s thoughts, Ezem talked a few minutes more. Eodwulf heard none of it. He nodded along, reaching up to rub at his eyes a handful of times, as if that would push his weary worries off someplace he couldn’t find. But, eventually, the old farmer bid him luck and left, and Eodwulf decided to beat a hasty retreat before another acquaintance could accost him.

Grabbing his half-full mug of ale and one of the magic paper lanterns from the table next to him—a shoddily built thing erected specifically for the evening—he turned and began to make his way towards the edge of town.

Blumenthal was by no means large. Even in the dark, it was hard to get lost in her dirt roads, and Eodwulf had lived there his whole life. He would be able to make his way around blindfolded, were he required to. Therefore, it didn’t take long for him to find the small, wooden stable building set between the rest of the town and the open, empty fields beyond. Bales of hay were stacked up on one side of the building, a makeshift staircase, and, while it took a small amount of time to find his balance on the uneven surface, especially with a bit of ale behind his eyes and his hands otherwise occupied, he eventually made it to the roof, where he settled down to enjoy a few moments of peace and quiet.

And a few moments were, indeed, all he got.

“Wulf?”

Though he heaved a sigh, a smile planted itself firmly on his lips, and he opened his eyes to look at the head peeking over the edge of the roof. All that was visible was a pair of blue eyes, bright even in the dim light of the slowly setting moons, and a mess of copper hair.

Caleb scrambled up onto the roof, brushing hay off his shirt as he sat beside Eodwulf.

“I saw you leave,” he said, leaning back on his hands nonchalantly.

Eodwulf hummed. “Needed a few moments away,” he explained. “Lots of people. You know me.”

Caleb scoffed. “We are going to be _surrounded_ by strangers in a few days.”

“Best I get my alone-time in now then, ja?”

Eodwulf examined Caleb out of his peripheral vision, catching the amused eye roll that Caleb didn’t even attempt to restrain. It was harder to see with the lack of light, but Caleb’s cheeks were flushed, the color slightly splotchy, and he swayed slightly. Eodwulf wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t paying close attention, but it was there.

Caleb had no mug with him now, but Eodwulf would guess that he’d had one—or several—throughout the night. It was a party, after all.

Eodwulf quickly drained his own mug.

“Are your things packed?” he asked, tilting his chin to look at Caleb head-on.

Caleb nodded. “Everything I will need, at least.”

“Good,” Eodwulf said before taking a deep breath, his lips pausing a moment on the next thing they wanted to say. Perhaps the alcohol loosened him up. Perhaps it was simply his anxieties turning his tongue to taffy. Most likely it was a bit of both.

Either way, Eodwulf continued with something he most likely wouldn’t have admitted openly otherwise.

“I am glad you will be with me tomorrow,” he said, turning to Caleb once more. He quietly acknowledged how the color on Caleb’s face went a few shades darker, watched his bright, blue eyes go wide and his lips part softly.

Caleb was pretty. But that was something Eodwulf wouldn’t say without quite a bit more ale in his stomach to lean on.

That didn’t stop him from saying other things, though.

“You are the best of us, you know?” he asked, leaning closer as his head began to swim a bit, his last draught of ale sinking into his system. His gaze took in every detail of Caleb’s face. The subdued freckles crawling over the bridge of his nose, the gentle slope of his cheekbones. Eodwulf took a deep breath, and the quiet smell of charcoal and night air filled his nose. “You are going to do amazing things, Caleb Widogast.”

Eyes focused on the bow of Caleb’s lips now, Eodwulf felt instead of saw something solid bump up against his shoulder. When he glanced down he found Caleb closer than he’d been a few moments ago, the solid thing against his shoulder being Caleb’s own.

“Do you think so?” Caleb asked, voice soft in Eodwulf’s ear.

He lifted his head again.

Oh. Oh, Caleb was _much_ closer than he’d been.

Close enough to kiss, if Eodwulf wanted.

With that thought, warning bells started to ring at the back of Eodwulf’s mind, cutting through the haze of alochol. He quickly cleared his throat, leaning out of Caleb’s space. Heart a fast beat in his chest, the back of his neck far too warm, he looked out on the empty fields again, trying to blink away the disorientation that came with such a quick change of thought and the swift turn of his head, especially when a bit drunk.

“I do, yes,” he finally answered, words shakier than he would have liked.

Caleb blinked slowly in his peripheral vision, and then leaned back as well, moving to cradles his hands in his lap, focusing all of his attention on the dirt beneath his fingernails. It was a position far too vulnerable for the Caleb Eodwulf knew and—cared for.

Silence steadily built itself up between them, brick by brick, until it was a solid, painful wall, and something akin to embarrassment similarly built in Eodwulf’s gut. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of it before. Kissing Caleb. He was handsome and charismatic and when he smiled the sun seemed to shine a bit brighter. Of course Eodwulf had thought about it. He’d simply never gotten so close to following through.

The discomfort started to thicken into something worse, and he quickly began to wish that Caleb would simply leave—he was the one who had followed, after all. But a minute passed, and then two, and then five, and still Caleb remained, staring at his hands.

And then an angel appeared.

“You two are absolutely dreadful.”

Astrid’s voice cut through the tension like a dagger, pulling a deep, dry exhale from the crevice in Eodwulf’s in which it had been hiding. A head shorter than Caleb—and two shorter than Eodwulf—it required a bit more effort for her to climb up onto the roof, but once she was there she gracefully stepped over and plopped down between them.

“It was not so bad when you slipped away, and it was just Caleb and I left to entertain our neighbors,” she said, leaning into Eodwulf’s shoulder in a less overwhelming imitation of how Caleb had. “But you!”

Caleb yelped as she kicked out at him. “Hey!”

“You abandoned me!” She turned to look up at Eodwulf with an absolutely furious expression in her eyes. “He used an invisibility spell and the second everyone realized he was not going to simply _reappear_ they flocked to me, instead.”

Eodwulf snorted, shaking his head and reaching up to rub the heel of his palm into his eye. “And now none of us are there,” he said.

Astrid huffed and grappled onto Eodwulf’s arm.

“Well, I am not going back,” she stated. “The two of you have had a break. I deserve one as well.”

Eodwulf was about to open his mouth to volunteer—at this point, he’d put up with being the center of the town’s attention if it meant escaping Caleb’s—but he didn’t get the chance. Caleb was on his feet before a single sound made it out of Eodwulf’s throat.

“I suppose I shall return to my adoring public, then,” he sighed dramatically, and didn’t even pause to listen to Astrid’s snort before making his way back down the hay bales, leaving Astrid and Eodwulf alone.

And Astrid, true to form, took a nap on him. 

 


	2. Soltryce, Pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eodwulf bakes a cake. Caleb turns sixteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote a third of this six months ago and the other two thirds in the last week and idk what's real anymore. is this any good??? no idea. is caleb in character????? idfk i'm telling myself pre-asylum caleb is basically a whole separate person personality-wise anyways. i don't know how it got this long. i don't know
> 
> should i be posting this now??? probably not. but i'm gonna anyways because i honestly don't want to work on it anymore. onto bigger and better parts of the story??? though i will say i..... do like a lot of what i wrote here. i think
> 
> no matter what. thabk you for reading. ik this is kind of a weird niche..... thing...... so everyone who read and commented means the world to me ❤️❤️❤️❤️

“You want a _cake_?” Fiona asked, the flour smeared across her cheek almost comical when combined with the exasperated expression wrinkling her skin.

Eodwulf respectfully folded his hands behind his back. “I know it is not a small favor to ask,” he said.

“By the Gods, Wulf, not even close!” She huffed, grabbing a rag to wipe her hands on and leveling him with a severe expression. “You know I run a tight schedule.”

“I do,” he agreed. “I apologize. I should have had the forethought to ask ahead of time.”

Fiona tossed the rag aside with an exaggerated sigh, head falling back.

She looked exhausted. Dark bags were printed beneath her amber eyes, pointed ears almost appearing to sag like her shoulders. But, then again, that was nothing new. Despite her apparent energy, Fiona was always tired. Her position lent her to early mornings and late nights, even with the small number of kitchen aides Soltryce had allowed her to hire on in the last few months. No matter how many people she had helping her, enrollment seemed to keep rising; more and more mouths to feed, and not enough hands to keep her caught up.

Taking a deep breath, she dragged a small hand over her face, and then pointed a slim finger in Eodwulf’s direction, her chin jutting out in a way that made her look like a hunting dog pointing towards prey.

“I don’t have the time, I’m afraid,” she started. “But I do have the space and the ingredients. You can make it yourself.”

Eodwulf’s eyes widened. “Me?”

“You.”

“I have, uh…” Eodwulf shifted his weight discretely from one foot to the other and began to anxiously crack his knuckles behind his back. “Baking is… not something I have ever done.”

Fiona grinned a disarming, toothy smile. “Never too late to learn.”

She spun without another word and started darting about the large kitchen, gathering an armful of things and hauling them over to an empty corner of the room. Full of apprehension, Eodwulf watched as the small pile of ingredients turned into a mountain, bit by bit. It was finally topped by a leather-bound book—not anywhere near as large as the tomes he studied from on a daily basis, but still thick enough to be worrisome.

“Stop hiding and come over here,” Fiona called as she set the book flat on the surface of the counter and began flipping through its pages.

Eodwulf approached as slowly as he dared. He caught sight of a handful of odd recipes—something made from a large fruit with a hard, spiky shell; cookies that came out a vivid red shade—before she landed on a page that was particularly bland. All words and no illustrations, unlike the pages before it.

“Alright—” Fiona tapped the page. “Follow this to the letter. I’ll be at the stove if anything is confusing.”

And then she left, turning on her heel and marching to the other side of the large room, immediately going back to whatever dish it was that Eodwulf had interrupted.

Turning to the book in front of him, Eodwulf took a steadying breath and began to read.

The recipe was broken down into numbered steps. The first were simply measuring the two types of ingredients—wet and dry—into two separate bowls. Easy. Calculable. Eodwulf could do that. He’d had to call Fiona to find out where to find a sift for the flour, but that was the extent of his complications.

The next step was simple mixing, adding dry ingredients to the wet bit by bit. He wasn’t sure what the instructions meant by “folding” the dry in, but he figured it wouldn’t make much of a difference if he simply stirred.

It wasn’t until after the cake had come out of the brick oven that he realized that he’d missed something. He’d simply poured the batter into the small, round tin that Fiona had stacked on his counter with all the other things she’d brought before he started and then set it near the heat, turning every so often to avoid burning. The cake was then tested with a wooden skewer, making sure it was done, and removed from the oven, and Eodwulf fell into the comfort of thinking that was the end of it, that he was home free. That he’d managed to accomplish the one item of the evening tasked to him without failing.

It was then that the problem arose.

“Fiona?” he called, holding the tin upside-down and shaking in an attempt to get the cake out.

“Yes, my young duckling?”

He flipped the cake back over and set it on the counter in front of him, frowning with his bottom lip nervously tucked between his teeth. “How would one go about getting the cake out of the tin, per chance?”

“Just tip it out!”

“Are you… sure?”

“Pretty damn sure, yeah.”

“Oh…” Eodwulf frowned, hands shifting behind his back as something in the pit of his stomach began to writhe.

“Alright, small one,” Fiona said despite the fact that Eodwulf was roughly twice her size, her voice getting closer, “I’ve an inkling, but let’s find out what went wrong, hm?”

Her elbow dug into Eodwulf’s side, somehow both aggressively and gently pushing him out of the way to gain access to his counter. She picked up the tin, turned it upside down, flipped it back over, and then began to forcefully tap the bottom against the wooden surface of the counter.

“You didn’t coat the inside of the tin with lard before you poured the mix in, did you?” she asked, turning the cake on its side and continuing her tapping.

Eodwulf felt his ears go warm. “I was supposed to do that, then?”

“You sure were.”

Fiona smiled at him—somewhat amused, somewhat fond, which in turn helped his ears cool a bit—and turned the tin over again, a few inches above the counter’s surface. She shook it a few times, as Eodwulf had done, and when nothing happened, she frowned and flipped it over once more.

“Hmm…” She folded her arms over her chest, squinting at the pan as if the solution were written on its circumference in very fine print. “Suppose we’ll just have to dig it out.”

Eodwulf felt his hearty fall squarely into that writhing object in his stomach. “Dig it out?”

“Yup!”

He hesitated. “Will it… Will it still…” He swallowed the disappointment in his throat and eyed the unevenly colored top of the cake. “Will it look alright?”

Fiona turned, expression softening to offer him a gentle, sympathetic smile. “We’ll do what we can, but it might come out a little wonky.”

“Ah…” Eodwulf swallowed.

 _Can’t even follow a simple recipe correctly,_ his mind provided.

“For what it’s worth,” Fiona started, leaning up on her toes to grab a flat, metal utensil from the shelf above, “I don’t think Caleb will mind if it looks a bit strange. Reckon he might even like it a bit more that way.”

Despite the fact that he was standing stock still, Eodwulf nearly slipped directly onto the chilled, dirty stone beneath him.

“Pardon?” he croaked, eyes wide, caught like a small animal in a spotlight.

“It might be missing a few corners, but it should still taste good, provided you did all the measuring right—”

“Who said it was for Caleb?” he asked, voice breaking, and he stood up straighter, trying to gain back any semblance of composure he might have held.

Fiona snorted. “I may not have attended a fancy magic school or anything, but I do have _eyes_ , Wulf.”

“I… What?”

She proved her statement by rolling her golden eyes, which eventually came to rest on Eodwulf with a look so unimpressed he felt less like an adult having a conversation and more like a child being scolded.

“I see the two of you at breakfast. And dinner,” she said, sticking the metal utensil between the cake and the pan. “And lunch, when you bother to stop learning and show up. You don’t sit that close to someone unless you want to. Not when you need elbow room.”

Eodwulf’s blush began to crawl up his cheeks.

He didn’t sit _that_ close to Caleb.

“We are just… very close friends,” he said.

“Mhmm,” Fiona hummed. “That’s what I said about Lena before we ran off and got married.”

Eodwulf ducked his head down, shoulders rising as if that would hide him from Fiona’s all-knowing gaze, while she moved the knife-like spatula in her hand around the edges of the pan. She didn’t say anything as she chipped the cake out of the tin’s hold. Just focused on the task at hand. Eodwulf wasn’t sure if she was being merciful, or if her true nature as a baker and chef was simply pushing its way into view.

When she finally pulled back, the tin didn’t look much different than it had. But then she flipped it over, and the cake fell out onto the wooden surface of the counter in front of them. It was missing a few sharp edges, and there were a few patches of yellow cake visible where the crust had been scrapped away, but it was round, and when she turned it so that the bulbous top stood towards the ceiling, it… didn’t look all that bad.

“Alright,” she started, setting the tin aside. “Icing recipe is on the next page, if you want. But I have a feeling you don’t, right?”

Eodwulf coughed, averting his eyes.

“No,” he muttered. “Caleb doesn’t like things that are too sweet.”

He didn’t see Fiona smirk, but she had a way about her—if she were smug, you’d somehow innately _know_ it. And know it Eodwulf did.

“You know where to steal plates and forks from?” she asked.

He sighed, resigning himself to her silent mockery. “Yes, I do.”

“Good. Go bring your man a cake, hm?”

And, with that, she reached up to give his shoulder an encouraging pat, spun on her heel, and started back across the kitchen, toward the stove she’d abandoned at his call. He watched her for a minute, waiting for the residual embarrassment to drain out of his cheeks, and then he turned in the other direction to follow her suggestion.

 

* * *

 

 

Eodwulf ended up opting for a handful of forks, tucked away in the pocket of his robes to free both of his hands for the cake. With six flights of steep, traffic-worn stone steps separating him from the tiny, secluded corner of the Library of Histories that Caleb had claimed as his own not long after they’d arrived, he had a feeling he’d need the extra balance.

The journey still proved tedious, unfortunately. Eodwulf rarely made the climb from the kitchens all the way up; even the dining hall—the lowest he went unless he was paying Fiona a visit—was only four floors away. It would have been less of an issue had he still been working with his father, out in their cattle fields, but Soltryce had meant for him to sit and study more often than to run or herd atop a horse. Now, with less endurance, his thighs started to burn as he reached the top of the second flight, and the slight walk down a corridor only gave him a few moments respite before he started up the third.

He continued, carefully climbing the fourth. He nearly slipped on the fifth, nearly dropped his already somewhat disappointing cake, but managed to catch himself. With great caution, he managed to make it to the landing and paused to breathe, relief flooding his lungs as he leaned against the wall for just a moment.

And then he pushed off to make his way down the hallway.

The Library of Histories—despite being the largest collection Soltryce had to offer—was almost constantly devoid of life. It was more an archive, if anything. Occasionally, books chronicling the history of Exandria would be carried up and tucked away on the shelves, or old scholars would come searching for a book to prove their side of some inane argument. Mostly, however, it was quiet and empty.

The Library was a maze built up by years and years of collection, but Eodwulf knew the path he was taking just as well as he knew the worn roads of Blumenthal. He’d walked it enough, searching for Caleb. If curfew had passed and his bed in their shared dormitory were empty, Eodwulf knew exactly where to go, and it hadn’t failed yet.

Muscle memory taking the lead, he turned one corner, then another, and then he weaved around a bit of shelving that jutted into the middle of his path for a reason he’d never been able to discern. Even with the majority of his attention focused on the cake in his hands—on all of the tiny imperfections—he still managed to avoid all obstacles. One final corner and warm, dim light and soft voices welcomed him into a tiny little alcove carved out of the shelves around it, pulling him closer.

Caleb’s table was small. Generally, its surface was covered in books, sometimes histories from the shelves above but usually amassed from Soltryce’s other, more useful libraries. Tonight, however, it was cleared. A few feet above it, four balls of light hovered silently, tinted a deep orange. Astrid’s handiwork. She’d told him, once, that the warmer tones reminded her of her favorite chair in front of her parents’ hearth.

In this moment, Eodwulf had to agree. With Astrid and Caleb’s heads bent close together and that orange glow falling over them both, the scene was horribly familiar to that which was borne of their many nights practicing together in the years before Soltryce. The only thing missing was the book that Astrid had gotten from her parents on her thirteenth birthday—a thick tome full of basic spells.

“Finally,” the woman herself spoke, brown eyes shifting in Eodwulf’s direction, attentive and sharp, “I was starting to think you’d grown cold feet, Wulf.”

“Cold feet?” he asked.

Astrid shrugged. “Fiona is scary.”

“She’s not wrong,” Caleb piped up.

Eodwulf looked at him. Nearly six months they’d been at Soltryce, it was only natural they change in some way or another—but neither he nor Astrid had changed quite as much as Caleb. He’d been in the middle of a growth-spurt when they left Blumenthal, and he’d gained another few inches since then; the top of his head reached Eodwulf’s chin, now. His newly gained height was less noticeable than his shoulders, though—just that little bit broader. And his hair was longer, grown down to his chin, and a few shades darker than the bright red it had once been. His eyes were the same, though. Still bright. Still not unlike the sun.

Eodwulf cleared his throat and shifted his gaze to the cake in his hands.

“She’s not scary. Not really,” he started, closing the gap between him and the table and setting the cake down on top of it. He staunchly refused to look at either of his companions and hoped Astrid’s dim lights would hide the shade of his cheeks, at least a little. “She is just frank.”

“She is _fond_ of you, Eodwulf,” Astrid said, leaning forward on the table. “She’s nice to you.”

Eodwulf snorted. “Hardly.”

“She made a cake when you asked,” Astrid stated, tone curt and straightforward, as if that were the end of the conversation, the last word that she was so good at getting.

Eodwulf pulled out his chair and sat down, back deceptively straight. “I made it.”

The smirk on Astrid’s face vanished, brown eyes going wide and reflecting the warm light she’d created. “You _what_?” She leaned forward, pulling Eodwulf’s gaze to her own. “Eodwulf, you have never cooked a thing in your life.”

“Yes. Well…” Eodwulf took a deep breath while his fingers moved on their own, fidgeting where they sat on the table in front of him. “Fiona did not have the time, so she—”

“You made this?”

Eodwulf didn’t think as his head turned, as he found Caleb in the dim light.

He was greeted by the tiniest flicker in Caleb’s eyes, a wet shimmer, and a disbelieving smile tugging at the corner of his lips. And when that smile, and those eyes, turned towards Eodwulf, something in his chest stuttered quietly.

And then it kicked into a steady, quick pace.

“I’m sorry that not all the edges are there,” he stuttered.

The corners of Caleb’s eyes wrinkled as his smile grew, and he reached out to grab onto Eodwulf’s arm, resting on the table between them. The warmth of his palm managed to pass directly through the thin sleeves of Eodwulf’s robes.

“I should have known by the lack of frosting,” he muttered with a squeeze.

Eodwulf could have sworn that his ears were on fire. Part of him wanted to mention that Fiona was perceptive—that, even though she hadn’t made the cake, she’d known how Caleb would have wanted it—but his tongue felt like taffy in his mouth. He knew he’d just end up stammering uselessly under Caleb’s attention, so, instead, he ducked his head with a shrug.

Across the table, Astrid coughed.

“As sweet as that is, I believe I brought the more important aspect,” she said, reaching into her component pouch and producing six tall, slim candles. She started to poke them into the unevenly browned surface of Eodwulf’s cake, all equidistant from each other, arranged in a neat hexagonal shape.

Caleb smiled. “Where did you get those?”

“She stole them.”

“I _borrowed_ them. From the candelabras in the Evocation Library.”

Eodwulf sighed, cheeks still burning but easily ignored now that the attention was off of him and instead focused on Astrid’s misdeeds. “She stole them, whittled them down to make them look more like birthday candles, and then she reformed the leftover wax and stuck them back in their places. Without wicks.”

“Sometimes, sacrifices must be made, Eodwulf.”

He rolled his eyes as Astrid began to light the candles, pinching the overly long wicks one at a time and foolishly starting with the one nearest herself. Somehow, she managed to set them all alight without burning herself, and then the golden orbs of light around them dimmed with a wave of her hand.

“Alright, Caleb,” she said, “make your wish.”

Caleb drummed his fingertips across the table top, bottom lip tucked between his teeth, and glared at the candles as if they’d personally done him a disservice. A moment, a squint, and he smiled.

“You are acting like you don’t already know what you are going to wish for.” Astrid leaned back in her chair, both legs and arms crossed. Eodwulf glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. When had she learned what Caleb’s wish would be?

Caleb took a deep breath and blew out the candles in one, the smoke from them wafting up toward the ceiling in delicate streams, pulling along the strong stench of burnt cloth.

“Wishes are delicate things, Astrid,” Caleb said as she brought the lights back up to a dim glow. “I just wanted to get it right. No mistakes.”

“What could you possibly have wished for that were worried about making a mistake?” Eodwulf muttered.

He wasn’t expecting a response, and he didn’t really receive one. But Astrid turned to grin sharply at Caleb, and Caleb looked off into the distance, and Eodwulf realized that, somehow, he’d missed something. Just as he opened his mouth to inquire further, Astrid turned that terrifying smile on him.

“So, are we to eat this cake with our hands?”

Eodwulf blinked. “Oh, uh…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his little cluster of worn forks. He set one on the table in front of each of his friends. “I did not bring a knife, though.”

Caleb didn’t hesitate to pick up the utensil in front of him and twirl it casually between his fingers. “I think we’ll make do.”

And then he jammed the fork into the cake with minimal care for where it landed and pulled a rather large chunk out. Astrid followed his lead, flashing Eodwulf a smile less devious than her previous one, and Eodwulf fell into suit behind them, albeit a fair bit more delicately. It wasn’t long before the table was a mess of crumbs and dropped chunks of yellow cake, and both Caleb and Astrid were talking around mouthfuls after mouthful.

The cake was not particularly large—perhaps the size of Eodwulf’s hand if he were to stretch his fingers out—but their method of eating caused their progress to slow as bits and pieces disappeared. That was more than fine. It left them with more time to catch up on each other’s daily activities.

Caleb reached out to spear one of the larger chunks of cake and stuck it in his mouth.

“I received a letter from my mother and father this morning,” he said around his fork. “They said to bid you both greeting.”

Astrid reached out to stab at another chunk of cake, but it split into two around the prongs of her fork. “How are Leofric and Una?” she asked as she tried again.

Eodwulf was fond of Caleb’s parents. They were kind. A bit stern, sometimes, especially Leofric with his military rhetoric and regime, but Eodwulf had no doubt that had been a boon in raising a young and rambunctious and overconfident Caleb.

Caleb’s fork pierced half of Astrid’s split chunk. “They are well. Harvest was even better than expected.” Eodwulf felt the toe of a shoe knock against his ankle, and Caleb looked at him with an odd, self-aware expression. “They said that your father misses having your hands around, Eodwulf.”

“I am sure he does,” Eodwulf mumbled, making his fork waddle across the surface of the table in front of him. “I told him he’d need to hire help without me there.”

“Are you surprised he didn’t?” Astrid asked, though she undoubtedly already knew the answer.

Eodwulf scoffed. “Of course not.”

With a quiet moment of hesitation and then a poke to his shoulder, Astrid turned to look at Caleb once more. “Anything in regard to my parents?”

Caleb leveled her with a sarcastic look. “As if your mother would let something be sent here and not slip in a missive to you.” He shoved his speared cake into his mouth. “It is in my desk. I’ll give it to you at breakfast tomorrow.”

“Don’t let him forget, Eodwulf,” Astrid said, reaching out to poke him this time instead.

“I won’t.”

“Wonderful!” Astrid exclaimed, and then she turned her attention back to Caleb and launched into a completely different topic. Something about research she was conducting with one of the senior mages, to which Caleb countered with his own work. The conversation quickly spun out from there, the two waving their forks around as they gesticulated. Eodwulf’s own fork sat on the table in front of him. He simply sat back and listened, as he usually did when his companions flew off into their world of detailed magical theory.

The night passed quickly this way. Orderly debates were born and lived full lives before being retired and a new one brought out of the woodwork. What felt like ten minutes could have easily been an hour; the glow of Astrid’s dancing lights provided no clue as to the passage of time. Eventually, though, the cake became nothing more than a few errant chunks and a mess of crumbs, and Astrid’s arms were folded across the table, her chin sitting atop them.

“I cannot listen to you any longer,” she groaned, eyes closed. “It’s too late for you to be rambling this level of incomprehensible magical detail at me, Caleb Widogast.”

Caleb scoffed. “It is hardly late, _Astrid Gilbert_.”

She lifted her head and made a dramatic show of reaching into the tiny pocket at her hip and pulling out the silver timepiece her father had given her for her own birthday the year before. With a flick of her wrist, she opened the case and motioned one of her lights closer, so she could accurately read the face.

“It is precisely eleven-forty-eight in the evening,” she said. “I believe that is plenty late.”

“It’s not even midnight!”

Astrid tucked her timepiece back into its tiny pocket as she stood, chair pushed out behind her and her back straight. “Some of us prefer to sleep,” she said. “‘Some of us’ being me.”

Caleb opened his mouth, no doubt to complain, but Astrid looked to Eodwulf before he could.

“The cake was wonderful. Goodnight, Eodwulf.” Slowly, she turned towards Caleb, the tiniest hint of something suggestive poking at her lips as she inclined her head. “Caleb.”

And then she turned on her heel and started to navigate the labyrinthian path out of the Library of Histories, her lights trailing after her like little floating ducklings.

Astrid’s footsteps began to fade into the distance, and the library suddenly felt much, much smaller. Silence grew to fill the space she’d vacated. Beside him, Caleb began to mutter an incantation, quickly recognized as one that would replace the lights Astrid had taken with her, but even the subdued, quiet tones of his voice felt as if they’d break something.

A moment later, Caleb’s lips pursed, and four little consecutive golden globes pushed out from the center of his chest, bobbing out a small distance to surround the table. Eodwulf turned to look at one, idly setting his chin in his hand.

He squinted. The color Caleb had produced was similar to that which Astrid used. Caleb’s lights were usually bright enough to read by—blinding white and hidden under his blankets at two in the morning, and somehow still enough to rouse Eodwulf from sleep on the other side of the room. It was strange, knowing that these dim, atmospheric lights had come from the same man.

“There,” Caleb said, spell completed, lights hovering silently. “Now we can see, at least.”

Eodwulf hummed, eyes focused on the floating orbs. “Taking a page from Astrid’s book?”

With a shrug, Caleb leaned forward on the table and picked up his fork. “I am not using them to read.”

“A fair point, I suppose,” Eodwulf breathed.

A quietness fell over them, and Eodwulf’s thoughts managed to drift back to their last night in Blumenthal, sitting on top of the stables. His memories of the evening—or at least most of it—were hazy. He didn’t remember when he’d gone to bed, or if he and Astrid had talked once she stopped using him as a pillow. But he could clearly recall how the moonlight had washed out Caleb’s skin and brought his freckles into view. How little space had been between them, and how he’d leapt away when his ale-addled brain had caught up, had realized how close he was to something he’d told himself he wouldn’t do. He remembered the tense, silent moments in the aftermath.

This, he acknowledged, was markedly different. There was a warmth to the silence instead of an oppressive, heavy weight, and Eodwulf more like time had paused completely, just for them. He glanced at Caleb out of the corner of his eye, and his thoughts were reaffirmed.

Caleb was next to him, older, changed, and bathed in golden light.

Heat began to climb up Eodwulf’s cheeks, curling around his ears, and he turned away, back to the nearest floating ball of light. It wasn’t much of a distraction, but it was enough, for the moment.

Unfortunately, a moment was all he received before Caleb broke the silence.

“So,” he started, innocently reaching out with his fork to push some cake crumbs around the platter, “are you ever going to kiss me?”

Eodwulf jerked.

Under the table, his knee bucked upwards and smacked against it, shaking the bits of cake on its platter and sending Astrid’s abandoned fork skittering onto the floor. He stood quickly, on instinct, chair creaking against the stones as he did, and practically leaped to fetch it. As he got down on his hands and knees, he tried desperately to ignore the way his heart had suddenly picked up pace, an aching rhythm against his ribs. Instead, he focused on trying to find the wayward utensil, hands reaching out and patting at the stone.

It didn’t take nearly long enough, he decided as he found it tucked up against one of the table’s legs. His heart still raced as he got his feet under himself and stood, and his blushed had managed to climb its way up towards his hairline. He didn’t look at Caleb as he leaned forward to brush the dust from his knees. But there was only so much of it, and, eventually, he had to stop, to straighten his back and face whatever it was that awaited him.

He stopped breathing when that happened to be Caleb’s gaze, focused completely on him.

Caleb wasn’t a soft man. He never had been. Their time at Soltryce had turned him into an eloquent man, charming and brilliant beyond measure. Through extensive study and work, he’d learned how to impress the most prestigious of academics with the biting wit and clever trains of thought he’d had since the first time they met in Blumenthal’s single schoolhouse. Caleb Widogast was truly extraordinary, he always had been, but he was not soft.

However, standing there, Eodwulf couldn’t think of a better word to describe him in that moment. It was in the light flickering around his irises like the gentle waves of flame in a woodburning stove, in the soft set at the corners of his mouth. In his easygoing posture with his chin balanced on one hand and the other folded in the crease of his elbow. In the fall of his hair, longer now and tucked behind his ears.

Caleb watched him silently. Patiently. Unassuming. And Eodwulf’s awe-filled heart began to slow to a steady, even beat.

He swallowed and looked down at the fork in front of him, held in both hands, rotating it and trailing the pad of his thumb over years’ worth of nicks and scratches. “I… I do not think that would be a good idea,” he mumbled.

Caleb’s expression dropped, his eyes going hard and his mouth falling into a tight line. “Why not?”

Eodwulf sighed. “Caleb—”

“No,” Caleb interrupted, lifting his chin, looking more like the unrefined, petulant farm boy he’d been six months ago. “You don’t get to refuse me and then not tell me why.” Their eyes met, and Eodwulf realized that not all the softness had left. “Not on my birthday.”

Something in Eodwulf’s chest—his resolve, maybe, or perhaps his peace—cracked, just a bit. Anxiety began to crawl up his legs like an early morning chill, and he forced himself to breathe through his nose as he grabbed onto his chair and sat back down, placing Astrid’s fork gently on the table and folding his hands diplomatically beside it.

Chewing his lip, he took a moment to organize three years’ worth of thoughts.

“Do you remember what I told you the night before we left home?” he asked, knee beginning to bounce as he recalled the roof of the stables, the way the moonlight had highlighted Caleb’s freckles.

Caleb’s expression twisted minutely before smoothing out and returning to stone. “A lot happened that night.”

Eodwulf huffed and reached up to run his hand through his short, dark hair. He scratched his thick fingers back and forth until the straight strands stuck on end and his scalp tingled, trying to figure out the best way to explain himself.

“You have always been leagues and bounds ahead of Astrid and I,” he started. “We’ve both been chasing you for years, and since we—since we got here you’ve pulled further and further ahead.”

“My skill does not diminish yours,” Caleb ground out.

“I know that, I know…” Eodwulf took a deep breath as his emotions caught up with him, rolling uncomfortably in his stomach and between his ribs. “That is—it’s not the point. I just… I…”

Eodwulf closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. In through his nose, out through his mouth. He reached up to scrub one of his large hands over his face, and then he turned and opened his eyes. He looked at Caleb directly.

“You spend full nights in this library, sometimes. You sit in on lectures you don’t need to simply because you want to learn. Astrid and I barely manage to get you down to dinner, most nights.”

“What are you saying?”

Frustration began to coil in his gut. Gods, Caleb was really going to make him say it—to make him say, out loud, what he’d been expressing through actions since they met.

“I am _saying_ that the world will tremble beneath your feet one day, Caleb Widogast. I am saying that I have watched you wholly dedicate yourself to that dream for as long as I have known you, and I want nothing more for you than to accomplish all your goals.

“You _will_ outgrow this place.” Eodwulf hesitated, words catching in his throat. But he’d gotten too far. So, he breathed a shuttering breath. “I don’t want to be the thing that makes you stay.”

A stiff silence settled between them as Caleb’s eyes widened and a quiet, shaky exhale escaped from between his lips. Eodwulf clenched his jaw shut, forcing himself to stay focused on Caleb as his words echoed in his chest. Caleb’s jaw worked for a moment. He looked like he might say something, break the silence once more, but instead he blinked and turned to scowl at the tabletop, and Eodwulf’s words finally began to flood his lungs.

“It—It was… It is presumptive of me, to think you would—”

“I would take you with me.”

Eodwulf blinked. “What?”

Caleb turned, resolve written across his features, to look Eodwulf in the eye.

“We grow together, or not at all,” he said. “If I leave, both you and Astrid come with me.”

“Caleb—”

“I would abandon all the knowledge in the world for—for the two of you. For you, Eodwulf. But I know you would not let me. So, I won’t.” Caleb set his jaw and sat up straighter. That unfathomable softness returned to his eyes, stealing Eodwulf’s breath in the process. “I will have both. If you’ll have me in return.”

And that was it. The walls that Eodwulf had built over the years, whatever shells had been formed to save himself from disappointment or abandonment or loss vanished into the air to hide among the dusty books and stories.

He stood. He couldn’t feel his legs as he took a step toward Caleb, but he felt everything as he took Caleb’s face between his hands, thumbs smoothing over high cheekbones as his heart picked up pace. His fingertips brushed over Caleb’s hair. His skin was soft and warm beneath Eodwulf’s palms, and he felt vaguely like he was drowning.

So, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Caleb’s lips without another word.

Eodwulf had kissed a small number of people in his life. His first had been a boy named Peter when he was seven. Nothing more than a peck one day at school. Then, it was Hans when he was thirteen and curious. And then, funnily enough, Peter again. Multiple times, in fact, hidden away in the hay bales piled up in Eodwulf’s father’s barn.

Kissing Caleb was like neither. 

Eodwulf opened his eyes as he pulled away, watching intently as Caleb blinked slowly and then smiled, his cheeks still framed by Eodwulf’s broad palms. In that second, with that smile, and those eyes looking up at him, Eodwulf knew he was ruined.

“It’s getting late,” he muttered, intent on memorizing every detail of Caleb’s face.

Caleb hummed. “It is.”

“We should—” Eodwulf stumbled over the words _go to bed_ , suddenly aware of the new connotation behind them, the one that came with a kiss and his fingers in Caleb’s hair. “We should head downstairs.”

Caleb closed his eyes and leaned into one of Eodwulf’s hands. “I have some reading I want to do.

Some of the magic faded, but the fondness blooming in Eodwulf’s ribs did not. “What,” he scoffed, “not enough excitement for one night?”

Caleb cracked one eye open, the familiar mischievous twinkling his irises normally bore heavily present. “Too much excitement, in fact.”

Eodwulf’s blush returned, lighter and more pleasant than earlier in the evening. “Well,” he started, butterflies tickling up his throat, “don’t stay up too late.”

Caleb’s other eye opened, mischief just as present, and grinned broadly, leaning up. “Can I have a kiss goodnight?”

Eodwulf snorted, but Caleb’s smile and rosy cheeks were already stroking at the warm bulb planted in his heart. And he didn’t stop. He just sat there, looking up at Eodwulf with that ridiculous twinkle in his eyes that had slowly worn down what little resolved Eodwulf had had in the first place.

Blush crawling over his cheekbones, Eodwulf sighed and leaned forward, hands slipping back to push through Caleb’s hair and cup the back of his head, and kissed him again, just like the first. Soft, barely there, and just as overwhelming.

Leaning back, he opened his eyes and let himself linger, for a moment. Looking. Caleb’s eyes opened slowly, his smile returning in a softer form.

“Goodnight, Caleb Widogast,” Eodwulf murmured, memorizing the slope of Caleb’s nose.

Caleb leaned up to kiss him once more. “Goodnight, Wulf.”

Eodwulf let himself have one more moment. Just a few seconds of holding Caleb, of sketching his exact expression onto the familiar features he already had mapped in his mind. And then he allowed himself one more kiss, to Caleb’s forehead. And a moment more to plot each and every freckle on his nose, and—

Caleb smiled. “Go,” he softly chuckled, reaching up to press the tips of his fingers into Eodwulf’s stomach. “I will see you in a few hours.”

Eodwulf heaved a breath, combing his hand back through Caleb’s hair once more. He knew that he’d be asleep by the time Caleb returned to their dormitory. But he needed to go. He needed sleep. He couldn’t operate on less than five hours, like Caleb could.

“Alright,” he started, sliding his palm down to cup Caleb’s jaw. “Alright. Yes. I’m going.”

He leaned down to kiss the bridge of Caleb’s nose, and finally forced himself to remove his hands.

“Alright. Goodnight.”

A gentle, smug grin pulled at Caleb’s lips, and he inclined his head. “Goodnight.”

And, finally—finally—Eodwulf took a few steps back, away, and turned to make his way out of the Library of Histories.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, Eodwulf stepped into the kitchens, into a busy mess of people rushing from workstation to workstation, with a handful of forks and a dirty cake platter in hand. It was a hectic scene. He took two steps into the swarm and halfling man dashed in front of him while a dragonborn swung a tray of chopped vegetables over his head. Another few steps and another halfling bumped into him, almost dropping the tray of bread she’d just pulled from the same oven Eodwulf had used the night before.

As quickly as he could, Eodwulf ducked to the side of the room and followed the counters around. On the opposite side of the large chamber, a number of basins meant for washing dishes and cooking utensils were left mostly alone, though dirty pots and pans were piling up one on top of the other.

He tried to keep himself as far away from the bustle of the middle of the kitchen as he slowly made his way towards the basins. They were the goal. Simply drop the platter and the forks into one of them and he could return to his lessons. That was all he needed to do.

It took time and a few incredibly quick reactions as people swung in front of him with sweat on their brows, a wild look in their eyes, and knives in their hands, but he made it. Dropping the platter and forks into the sink, he heaved a breath and turned to slowly make his retreat.

The universe, however, had different plans for him, and turning brought him face to face—or nose to chest—with an exhausted elven woman.

Eodwulf jumped, the small of his back colliding with the lip of the basin behind him.

“Eodwulf Adalbern,” Fiona said, her hands balled into fists and resting on her hips, elbows spread wide. She was wearing an apron covered in flour, and there were smears of numerous substances on her cheeks, over her nose. The bags beneath her eyes were even deeper than the night before.

Eodwulf groaned and reached behind himself to feel at the spot on his back that would no doubt be a rather large bruise come the evening. “Fiona,” he said, voice mostly drowned out in the din of the kitchens. “You frightened me.”

“Sorry,” she said, voice clipped. “I don’t have much time. Breakfast rush. Did Caleb like his cake?”

Eodwulf’s flush was instant.

“Oh, that good? Wonderful. Now the two of you can stop pining like star-crossed lovers. Get out of my kitchen.”

And Eodwulf did. As fast as he could.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: [@asexualshepard](http://asexualshepard.tumblr.com/)  
> twitter: [@asexualshepard](https://twitter.com/asexualshepard)

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@asexualshepard](http://asexualshepard.tumblr.com/)


End file.
